


Change, Gratitude and the Heartbreak Turtles

by westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Episode Tag, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-05-23
Updated: 2006-05-23
Packaged: 2019-05-30 11:39:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15095948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist/pseuds/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist
Summary: Donna things about how things really can change "in a New York minute" and Stephanie, Sam, Josh and Dr. Freeride.





	Change, Gratitude and the Heartbreak Turtles

**Author's Note:**

> A copy of this work was once archived at National Library, a part of the [ West Wing Fanfiction Central](https://fanlore.org/wiki/West_Wing_Fanfiction_Central), a West Wing fanfiction archive. More information about the Open Doors approved archive move can be found in the [announcement post](http://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/8325).

TITLE: Change, Gratitude, and the Heartbreak Turtles (1/1)  
AUTHOR: Laurel A. -- I love feedback!  
SPOILERS: Everything up to, and including, Somebody's

Going to Emergency, Somebody's Going to Jail.  
RATING: PG  
DISCLAIMER: I don't own them; don't sue me.  
ARCHIVE: Archive anyplace, just let me know.  
SUMMARY: Donna thinks about how things really can change "in a New York minute," and Stephanie, Sam, Josh, and Dr. Freeride.  
RATING: PG  
AUTHORS NOTE: Thanks as always to Michelle, my stalking, Midwestern alter ego! I also want to acknowledge Dean Stockwell and the writers of Quantum Leap, for "only pulling the pigtails of the one you love." Information on Kemp's Ridley Turtles was found at the website of HEART (Help Endangered Animals-Ridley Turtles), www.ridleyturtles.org.

This is the next installment in the Josh/Donna POV series Our Two Consciences by Michelle Hoffmann and myself:

Roles by Laurel A.  
Masks by Michelle H.  
Donna Moss Talks About Sex and Joey Lucas by Laurel A.  
Josh Lyman Talks About Strategy by Michelle H.  
Late At Night In The Soft Warm Glow by Laurel A.  
Perfect Clarity by Michelle H.  
I Confess by Laurel A.  
Static Electricity by Michelle H.

It is amazing how things change so fast. Not fast in reality, but one minute you are this young, naive girl in Wisconsin heading towards a suburban life married to a doctor; next minute, you've got your very own Big Block of Cheese assignment at the White House.

When I joined the Bartlet campaign, I was wiping the slate clean for myself. I was taking a leap of faith. I was casting aside the baggage I had gathered along the way from living in the same town my whole life, from always choosing the safe path, and from my relationship with Dr. Freeride.

As scared as I was when I arrived in Nashua, New Hampshire, I was determined to start over, to assert myself, to speak my mind. My first triumph came barely an hour after I had stepped into the Bartlet campaign office; I got this kind of cute, but harried looking, Josh Lyman guy to let me stay on as his assistant.

As I worked and traveled with the campaign, I dared myself to be assertive in ways that I had never been. I would speak up and be relentless, and with Josh, it worked. Somewhere between my pushing to get the information to him and his protests that he wasn't listening, he would hear what I had to say.

This has become one of the things I love best about my relationship with Josh. I love that he made me see that it was rewarding to be Assertive-Donna and that he helped inspired me to aim for Powerful-Confident-Smart-Loyal-Woman-and-You-All-Know-It.

Sometimes he would follow my advice outright or bring the extra research I'd done to the Senior Campaign Staff meetings. That started to make me feel more like Real-Donna than at any other time in my life.

Being Assertive-Donna was a change I felt good about, and feeling like Real-Donna was exhilarating and addictive. I loved leaving behind my reputation of being the shy one in my family and circle of friends - blonde, pretty, unassuming, quiet, shy, and "nice."

I relished my newfound assertiveness and place in the Bartlet campaign. And, for as much as Josh protested it, I knew that not just for me, but also for a lot of the staff, the campaign was a place to start over.

We had that Bad News Bears thing going for us. The rag-tag band of misfits, all of us unappreciated in our previous positions, and just poised on the verge of greatness. It was an incredible time, and it got even more incredible as we grew into our positions on the campaign trail, in the transition office, and at the White House.

So, while it's been three years since I drove from Wisconsin to New Hampshire, leaving behind "nice" and heading towards Real-Donna, it feels like about a minute has gone by.

Today is Leo's Big Block of Cheese Day and I have been assigned The Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtle Society to meet with. It actually was an assignment I really enjoyed. The President is right, whether you like it or not, Big Block of Cheese Day does affect you.

Known as the Heartbreak Turtle, the Ridley's Kemp sea turtle is the most critically endangered sea turtle in the world. Author Pamela Phillips wrote in the "Great Ridley Rescue" that a Ridley's Kemp turtle "would struggle to the point of death when captured and laid on its back on deck, and fishermen believed that it died of a broken heart; thus it came to be known as the heartbreak turtle." In spite of being the underdogs in the fight against extinction and the smallest of the sea turtles, they are making a valiant effort at a comeback.

I also had a personal Cheese meeting today. My friend Stephanie asked me to help her get her grandfather's name on the Presidential Pardon consideration list. It's become increasingly important to her because of her father's failing health. Now that her dad is in the final months of his life, Steph has taken on her his lifelong crusade to clear her grandfather's name.

Steph is the only friend I have kept in touch with from my two years of college. Back then, I don't think either one of us would have guessed we'd be where we are now; but Steph and I have more in common than working in the political arena - she also dated Dr. Freeride.

His actual name is Brian. But since Josh dubbed him Dr. Freeride, and the rest of the staff heard the tale of heartbreak that brought me to the Bartlet campaign, he has exclusively been called Dr. Freeride (and become almost an icon of Evil-Male among the female staffers).

I almost never think of him as Brian anymore. To me, this is symbolic of how much I have grown and how little he matters to me now.

I am grateful though, for having gone through what I did with him. In a way I am glad it happened, because it brought me here, to the White House, and closer to knowing who Real-Donna is and what Real-Donna wants out of life.

It would have been easy to dislike Steph; she had been Dr. Freeride's girlfriend just before me. She was smart and saw him for the user that he was. Steph broke up with him after only four months -- in fact, she broke up with him two hours before he went to a party and picked me up.

While I was supporting Dr. Freeride, I lost touch with most of my friends. I stopped communicating with my male friends completely. As I am sure you guessed, Dr. Freeride was insanely jealous of my time, and me, and not in an endearing way. I stopped spending time with my female friends too. I was so busy working then, and the time I had off, I spent with Dr. Freeride. I became isolated, pouring all of myself into the relationship.

When he dumped me, I had only acquaintances to turn to for support. It was then that Steph and I bonded over the loathing of the same ex-boyfriend. She let me stay with her when I moved out of the apartment Dr. Freeride and I shared, and that I paid for. I slept on her couch for 10 weeks, getting my life in order and regaining my emotional strength. Her perspective of hatred for Dr. Freeride helped me get angry enough to want to make a major change in my life. And I am grateful for that.

So, what, then, is with all the Local Gomers, you ask? It's what Steph and I call Donna-Is-A-Healthy-Red-Blooded-American-Woman-And-She-Needs-Some-Company, that's what it is.

I was never really aware of my sexuality until I met Dr. Freeride. And while, at the time, I was satisfied with our sexual relationship, I have learned to speak up and be assertive in that arena as well.

Since moving to DC, I have had some great lovers. Where Dr. Freeride was selfish, lording my sexuality over me, using it as a power play while making me think I was in control, others have been generous and giving. I didn't have a serious relationship with any of them, but there were a couple that are special to me because of this. They restored my broken faith in the beauty of the sexual power that I never knew I had. They raised the bar for what I expect and want in a physical relationship. And I am grateful for that.

It was awful to watch Sam get trapped by the truth and what he desperately wanted to be the truth, while trying to be the hero and clear Daniel Gault's name. Putting the faith he had just lost in his father into Daniel Gault's innocence, he was faced with heartbreak for the second time this week.

Sam loves to be the hero, to move people with his words, to inspire the good in people's hearts. He has so much faith in the human spirit that every crack that the dirty side of humanity makes in his shell of innocence is a body blow to him.

I took advantage this morning of his faith and ideal view of the world. I knew what I was doing when I told Steph to let Sam know that she heard he was "the man." I knew that it would give him something to grab a hold of, to distract him from his disappointment in his father. I knew that he would want to live up to that image and that he would want to get a pardon for Daniel Gault.

Tonight in the White House Mess, he called me on it. And I felt terrible. I had used his trust, his optimism, and I took advantage of his weaknesses. I guess I have learned a few things from the politicians I've worked with, and against, over the past three years.

In the context of Sam's world this week, a world that was getting as disproportionate and confusing as CJ's mental maps of the planet, it was the wrong thing to do and it made me wonder if I would have done the same thing to Josh.

As awful as it makes my feelings for Sam sound, I don't know if I could do the same to Josh. His ego is bigger, and it's certainly a tactic that would have worked on him, but it's not how I operate with Josh.

I do prey on his ego sometimes, but it's usually to get him to do something that's for his own good. And sometimes, just for fun, I do things to Josh that I know drive him nuts. That's how we operate.

I do that stuff to get a reaction out of him. Like when you're a kid and you punch your big sister in the arm just to get her attention and to see what she will do. Or when you're in the 5th grade and the boys only pull the pigtails of the girls they like.

That's what I was doing when he came into the Big Block of Cheese meeting. He knew I was saving a seat for him. I knew I'd have to move out of the way to let him get to the seat, but I didn't move. I was punching him in the proverbial arm; I was pulling his pigtails. I wanted to get a reaction out of him; I wanted to make him focus his attention on me.

You might not know it from the outside, but Josh and I spend a lot of time together; a fact that doesn't help combat this amazing crush I seem to have developed on his warm smooth hands and great butt. But, I am digressing here.

I don't know if Josh tells the other senior staffers about how much we hang out, but they seem to have started taking it for granted. Sam didn't question it when Josh said "Hey Steph" when he saw us in the Mess, and no one batted an eye when I invited myself along to help Sam get drunk tonight. I like that Josh knows some of my friends well enough to use their nicknames, and that we have a relationship that involves things not entirely related to the White House.

The time we spend together outside the White House isn't something we usually plan. But since the shooting, and especially since Christmas, we have been going out a lot after work. We almost always leave at the same time, walking to our cars together. Sometimes we grab a late dinner together, and every once and a while we'll wander to Lafayette Park or in a loop around the Washington Monument just to walk off the stress of the day.

The most important thing to me with Josh is that he sees me as an equal. I never want the dynamic between us to become like the dynamic I had with Dr. Freeride.

I admire the relationship that the Bartlets have. Their love has so many dimensions, but at the root are equality, honesty, and fidelity. They have the kind of giving, supportive love that the philosopher Rilke aspired to, "...each appoints the other guardian of his solitude, and shows then this confidence, the greatest in his power to bestow." They raised the bar for me for what I expect and want in an emotional relationship. And I am grateful for that.

I think I know now what Real-Donna wants, both physically and emotionally. I'll give you a hint; he's got warm smooth hands.


End file.
